Police Raid Japanese Rail Offices

Seeking clues into Japan's worst train crash in decades, investigators Tuesday raided the rail operator's offices for clues about why the train skidded off the tracks, killing at least 78 people.

Rescuers pulled two survivors from the gnarled wreckage Tuesday, as power shovels picked at the piles of twisted railway cars, peeling away layers of crushed metal to allow better access to the two train cars flattened against an apartment building that the train slammed into during Monday's deadly accident.

Agents swarmed eight offices of West Japan Railway Co., carting away cardboard boxes of documents. The probe into possible professional negligence has focused on the actions of the driver — who has not yet been accounted for — and the speed of the train.

The hundreds who were injured are among millions of Japanese who ride trains every day and expect clockwork efficiency, reports CBS News Correspondent Barry Petersen. Even subways keep a strict minute-by-minute schedule. If drivers are late getting to a station, they are in trouble with their bosses.

The driver — identified as Ryujiro Takami — got his train operator's license in May 2004. One month later, he overran a station and was issued a warning for his mistake, railway officials and police said.

Authorities suspect the 23-year-old driver with too little experience was going too fast so he would not be late at the next station.

National broadcaster NHK reported that police suspected the train was going 65 mph when it hit the curve where it derailed — well above the 43 mph speed limit.

Workers freed two survivors from the wreckage early Tuesday, and police said they did not expect to find anyone else alive. Police said an unknown number of bodies remained in the wreckage.
The rescue and recovery mission has proved extraordinarily difficult, reports CBS News' Lucy Craft. For one thing, the train car has wedged deep inside a parking lot on the first floor of an apartment building, and leaking gasoline in the parking lot has forced workers to abandon their saws and electrical tools, and rely simply on shovels and their bare hands.

Hiroki Hayashi, 19, was sprung from a damaged car after surviving the night with the help of an intravenous drip and drinking water.

"I'm in pain, I can't take it anymore," he told his mother in a cell phone call after the crash, according to his 18-year-old brother Takamichi Hayashi.

Hiroki Hayashi was injured in the leg and was conscious and in stable condition at a hospital as of Tuesday afternoon.

A local gymnasium has been converted into a makeshift morgue, reports Craft, and dozens of relatives have gone to the building to await word of those still missing. Physically- and emotionally-exhausted family members expressed a combination of disbelief, grief and anger. One man, after identifying his wife's remains, said the railroad had murdered his wife.

"I wish it were only a nightmare," Hiroko Kuki, whose son Tetsuji was killed in the crash, told public broadcaster NHK. "I only saw him the night before ... I wish he were alive somewhere."

In northern Japan, the lead car of a passenger train jumped the tracks when it crashed into a trailer at a crossing at Nimori on Tuesday in the second derailment in two days. The trailer's driver was slightly hurt.

The seven-car train that crashed Monday in Amagasaki was packed with 580 passengers when it jumped the tracks near this Osaka suburb and plunged into the first floor of an apartment complex. At least 456 people were injured.
Government inspectors launched their accident investigation Tuesday by examining the tracks. They also hoped to recover a recorder with data on the train's speed and other details at the time of the accident, said Shimoda, a Transportation Ministry inspector who gave only his family name.

Monday's accident occurred at a curve after a straightaway. Passengers speculated that the driver may have been speeding to make up for lost time after overshooting the previous station.

The train had been nearly two minutes behind schedule, company officials said.

They were investigating the case as possible professional negligence by the train operator, West Japan Railway, Co., a prefectural police spokesman said on condition of anonymity.

Tsunemi Murakami, the railway's safety director, said he instructed company employees to fully cooperate with police investigating the cause of the accident.

Deadly train accidents are rare in Japan. Monday's accident was the worst rail disaster in nearly 42 years in this safety-conscious country, which is home to one of the world's most complex, efficient and heavily traveled rail networks. A three-train crash in November 1963 killed 161 people in Tsurumi, outside Tokyo.

Five people were killed and 33 were injured in March 2000, when a Tokyo subway hit a derailed train. An accident killed 42 people in April 1991 in Shigaraki, western Japan.